I don't know if anybody is going to read this, I didn't even know there were any comments made on that first post. I'm very appreciative of everyone who took the time to read it, it means a lot to me.
Anyway, I really want to have a blog, for real this time. I tried thinking up some catchy concepts or something of actual substance, but couldn't find anything I was actually motivated to take the time to do. So instead this will just be an online diary, like the first post, where I'm going to write about anything and everything pertaining to my life. And I really mean "pertaining to my life", I have no interest in boring you about my philosophical views on education or the government (bleck!).
So, how about a little catch-up? Since last spring when I made my last post a series of events important but completely expected took place. The summer came and went all too quickly, with me spending an entire month at a college prep program where quite literally nothing happened (though I did meet and re-meet some very great people). Senior year started, my girlfriend left for college, I started the college application process, and then I decided to start a blog.
Obviously leaving out a few details, that's where I am right now. I don't like writing about old news, so I'll try keeping it current.
Yesterday was my eighteenth birthday. What a more appropriate time to start blogging, no? It was spent with my brother Dan who is living at home and attending a small near-by university, my mother, and my father. We ended up decorating the house for Christmas, and ordering take-out from Red Lobster.
But something else happened yesterday, something I have very mixed feelings about. Lately I have been wanting a new computer. Really, more needing than wanting. I need it for recording music (my passion, what I want to go to college for), as the first generation mac mini I'm using can't run the programs I need, or do anything else I want to do. It's like a painter wanting an actual canvas since he's tired of painting on notebook paper.
That makes me sound so full of myself. Oh well.
It's funny, the more I try to explain about this, the more of the story I'm forced to tell, in order for you to get the context of it. Try to bear with me. I got a job at CVS back in August, for the sole purpose of purchasing this computer. My parents both work low-paying entry-level jobs and have a hard time making ends meet as it is, I couldn't ask them to make such an expensive purchase. Since I wasn't eighteen, I couldn't get a bank account in my name so all my money just went into my parents' account. This should spell "trouble" to any reasoning person. I had various expenses since getting the job, I got a new cell phone, payments on a trip to Florida the chorus is taking in the spring, plus the four hundred dollars my mother claims I owe her for the text books I used (or rather didn't use) when I was home-schooled in eighth grade. It was never really made clear whose money they were spending for all that, theirs or mine.
If they were using my money to pay all that with, then I basically will never see any of the money I made in my first three months of employment. Frustrating? Maybe a little, especially with this new computer on the line. But the light was waiting for me there at the end of the tunnel... my eighteenth birthday... surely then my parents will be willing to put the money down for my new computer, surely then all will be made right. I'll even be able to open my own bank account and the confusion will be over.
So my birthday arrived. To keep a short story short, the evening came, my mother handed me and my brother her credit card before going to bed (she works third shift, at a chocolate factory, and has to have a nap before going in). My brother picked out all the parts for it (we're assembling it ourselves) at newegg.com, we typed in the credit card number, and placed the order.
The credit card was denied.
This wasn't wholly unexpected, my parents aren't in the best situation credit-wise. We had a run of bad luck in the past few years, my father spent three years teaching at a private school for the least amount of money he had ever made before being fired, my mother never really had any kind of career and usually just worked factory jobs, so we were living on credit and now it's all come crashing down.
My parents are hard-working, intelligent, educated people. The problem was they were both music majors, my father got his masters from seminary (pastor school), neither was set up for a particularly profitable career (or any at all). We've done the best we can, and I have all the love in the world for them. This has just been a very rough season.
I'm angry the credit card was denied. This means waiting even longer for a computer I expected to have months ago. It feels like a deserve a computer, I got a job for it, I've been working for it. It feels like all my money has been taken from me and it still wasn't good enough.
I'm also relieved the credit card was denied. This is the same card that's kept us in debt for so long, the last thing we need to do is keep spending with it and drive us deeper into debt.
I feel guilty for being so angry when my parents have worked so hard. My mother works third shift at a chocolate factory, for crying out loud, I can't really complain about anything.
I don't really know how to feel, I'm also not sure if I'm really getting my point across here. I'm kind of the screw-up kid, the consistent underachiever whose natural aptitude for music (something my parents are responsible for) is the only thing getting me into college (if I can even pay for it). But for some reason I just can't help but feel "entitled" to things, things I don't really deserve. I feel like everybody else in the whole world is better off than my family. But I also know that's of course far from the truth.
I just wish things were better, I guess.
But things aren't that bad. I'm just having one of those days where it seems that way, I guess. The resolution is I am indeed going to be opening my own bank account, I'm going to know which money is mine and which is my parents', and sooner or later I'll have enough saved up for that god damn computer.
-Dr. M
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